Designing Ideas

Into Action

Everyone loves the big idea, but now it's down to designing specifically how that idea will work. Instead of just a green roof, it's the exact details of how it will look. Not only that, but many projects require a series of drawing as part of a whole master plan or site plan. From there a new set of drawings will cover the exact details of where each individual plant, stone, fountain, or bench should go.

What's the

Big Idea

It's brainstorming, sketching, or otherwise imagining what will make the site special. Will a park include an amphitheater or an athletic field? Should the space use a green roof, water system, or solar panels? Landscape architects use initial drawings (like this video) or 3-D models to propose the big ideas. If it's a large public project, there may be more opportunity for public feedback.

All 50 states require landscape architects to earn a license to practice, ensuring that the designs protect the health, safety, and welfare of all users. In fact, you can't even call yourself a landscape architect without a license.

EDUCATION

Designing a Landscape Architect

Think you have what it takes? Landscape architects typically hold a bachelor's or master's degree in landscape architecture, covering a broad spectrum of design, science, and technical know-how. Topics include site design, historic preservation, planning, grading and drainage, horticulture, and even subjects like psychology.

More than 60 schools offer bachelor's or master's programs across the country. Many graduates will go on to work in landscape architecture or other design firms. Organizations with large amounts of land to manage will also employ landscape architects. Companies like Disney, federal government agencies like the National Park Service, local government agencies, parks and recreation departments, universities, and others all staff landscape architects.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE COLLABORATION

Designing with Others

Landscape architects design, often working with landscaping or other construction companies to install those designs. Think of the fashion designer imagining an outfit while a clothing manufacturer makes the apparel, or an artist designing a wall poster that's printed by another company. Landscape architects and contractors are complementary but highly distinct professions.

Beyond construction companies, landscape architects often collaborate with a whole host of other professionals to make up the design team. A project like the High Line not only includes landscape architects, but architects, engineers, and multiple contractors as well. Other projects may include planners, horticulturists, soil scientists, medical professionals, or other specializations in order to solve the design challenge.

Breaking Ground

and Beyond

A landscape architect's job doesn't end with the final plan. The designers routinely visit the site, meet with the client, and work with the construction team to ensure all goes smoothly. After completion, landscape architects evaluate the success of the project and, depending on the client, continue to oversee management of the site post-construction. Many cities and counties have their own landscape architects on staff to manage all the parks and public land.

BENEFITS OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Designing Awesome

Restoring endangered wetlands, reducing hospital stays, securing government and other buildings, removing toxins from rainwater — these aren't pie in the sky. It's what landscape architects are designing right now. A few examples include:

Green Roofs — Instead of a black tar roof, a living system of plants and soil can actually reduce air temperature by 59 degrees in the summer, save winter heating costs, clean and store rainwater, and provide habitat to pollinating insects and birds.

Energy Savings — Landscape architects can utilize trees, shrubs and other plants to lower a home's heating/cool costs by as much as 50 percent in the summer and up to 8 percent in the winter.

Learning the

Landscape

Design starts here. Before breaking out the sketch pad, landscape architects need to figure out what the client needs, research the site, identify possible uses, and, depending on the project type, solicit community input. In fact, much of landscape architecture focuses on the analysis, planning, and stewardship of the land before any design begins.

Sometimes it takes a lot of imagination to use what's already there. This weed-choked, silt-filled irrigation pond clearly needed help. However, just a little TLC and some subtle designs dramatically transformed the area into a family gathering spot.

Community input is essential for any public project. In Atlanta, local residents used building blocks as part of an exercise to figure out just how dense they wanted future neighborhood developments. The results fed into the final plan outlining how to manage the city's long-term growth.

Sometimes a space just needs a little invigoration. Other times it's a former Chinese shooting range and garbage dump surrounded by slums. These incredibly tough challenges require extensive analysis before starting the design process, but end with tremendous results.

It's seriously hot in Arizona (over 100 degrees a quarter of the year hot), making shade a pretty important component in any design. This computer model not only shows off the Mesa Arts Center, but how the design provides shade to visitors — matching up almost exactly with the finished project.

While this sketch formed the initial idea, it doesn't quite illustrate the experimental wetland that's part of the new science building at University of Minnesota Duluth. The design team later created additional concepts — including the 3D model here — to better show the design ideas.

Change happens, especially when it comes to design ideas. This is the original winning design for HtO, an urban beach in downtown Toronto. However, you'll see that the final project includes several subtle but noticeable changes, like the addition of umbrellas near the water.

Initial concepts are often, well, conceptual. This is an early sketch of a 25-acre project at the Gannett/USA Today headquarters outside of Washington, D.C. While there are many steps between the initial drawing and construction, the final project isn't that far from the first sketch.

Because landscapes are alive, they grow and change year to year, season to season. The design of the Lurie Garden at Chicago's Millennium Park included careful planning of how the colors would change throughout the year.

Like a Russian doll, many smaller planning docs make up the guts of a site plan, allowing the construction team to implement specific design elements. An example is this materials plan for New York City's Museum of Modern Art roof garden.

Complex projects can use simple diagrams to convey specific details. You'd never know it from the planting plan, but it's part of a school rooftop farm that grows more than 1,000 pounds of vegetables each year.

This smaller-scale, zig-zagging backyard site plan includes all of the materials and plants proposed by the landscape architect. Trees are noted as empty circles, which estimate the canopy sizes while also showing what will be installed underneath.

Sometimes a project will span a few months, other times a few decades. At Sequoia National Park, a long-term management plan protected the giant trees while restoring the park's natural beauty. Twenty-year-long projects like this require both park-staffed landscape architects and outside designers.

Sometimes the design will require unique construction techniques, like this water treatment facility in Connecticut. Using bioengineering methods, the design and construction team created these undulating hills on a tight budget.

This new Shanghai wetland cleans 500,000 gallons of water every day. The evaluation of this project showed that the natural system could transform the water from being completely unsafe to being used in everything but drinking.

That tiny voice inside a landscape architect's head often whispers, "Can you actually build this thing?" In addition to solving the design challenge, landscape architects collaborate with architects, engineers, and construction teams to make sure the design can and does get built — like this green roof.